springer international publishing springer international publishing feb 2014 (202 risultati)

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Like many fields of science, the future of medicine is frequently predicted by the science fiction writers of today, very much as many of today¿s medical advances were presaged by science fiction stories of the past.In this book, physician and science fiction author Brad Aiken conveys his own speculations about our medical future through nine highly entertaining and thought-provoking short stories. Touching upon a great variety of themes, including but not limited to telemedicine and remote surgery, vaccination strategies against unknown deathly pathogens, nanomedicine to cure diseases and retard ageing, bionics, cloning and euthanasia, we get a glimpse of what might be awaiting humanity.Yet, in these stories it is always the protagonists, humans after all, who remain at the center stage, not the new technologies. This provides the fictional material with a unique blend of science fiction and social fantasy. It also warns us to be wary of the pitfalls of too much reliance on dehumanizing technology and to make sure it remains our helper, not our master.Last but not least, an extensive scientific essay investigates the interplay between science fiction and both past and current advances in medical sciences and technology, making the link to the fictional material in the book as well as to the relevant scientific literature.Brad Aiken is the Medical Director for Rehabilitation at Baptist Hospital in Miami, Florida. He has published several scientific articles, and has presented to both professional and non-professional groups on a variety of topics. Dr. Aiken has received numerous science awards, including the Navy Science Award, as well as awards from the Army, the Air Force and NASA. He began writing science fiction while in college at Boston University, and published his first book, Starscape: The Silver Bullet, in 2000. His latest book, Zone of the Tenth Degree, was published in August 2012. Hisshort stories have appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Padwolf Presents, and the vampire anthology New Blood.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 208 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book explores a collection of natural surfaces, their scientific characteristics and their unique engineering potential ¿ demonstrating that engineering applications can be found in unexpected places. The surfaces covered range from botanical ones, like rice and lotus leaves, to insect surfaces, like butterfly and dragonfly wings. The variety of surfaces and numerous engineering potentials described show how biomimicry can be utilized to solve countless real¿world problems.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 180 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Mining has been entangled with the development of communities in all continents since the beginning of large-scale resource extraction. It has brought great wealth and prosperity, as well as great misery and environmental destruction. Today, there is a greater awareness of the urgent need for engineers to meet the challenge of extracting declining mineral resources more efficiently, with positive and equitable social impact and minimal environmental impact. Many engineering disciplines¿from software to civil engineering¿play a role in the life of a mine, from its inception and planning to its operation and final closure. The companies that employ these engineers are expected to uphold human rights, address community needs, and be socially responsible. While many believe it is possible for mines to make a profit and achieve these goals simultaneously, others believe that these are contradictory aims. This book narrates the social experience of mining in two very different settings¿PapuaNew Guinea and Western Australiäto illustrate how political, economic, and cultural contexts can complicate the simple idea of 'community engagement.' Table of Contents: Preface / Mining in History / The Ok Tedi Mine in Papua New Guinea / Mining and Society in Western Australia / Acting on Knowledge / References / Author BiographiesSpringer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 152 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -In these lecture notes, we will analyze the behavior of random walk on disordered mediaby means ofboth probabilistic and analytic methods, and will study the scalinglimits. We will focus on the discrete potential theory and how the theory is effectively used in the analysis of disordered media.Thefirst few chapters of the notes can be used as an introduction to discrete potential theory.Recently, there has beensignificantprogress on thetheoryof random walkon disordered media such as fractals and random media.Random walk on a percolation cluster(¿the ant in the labyrinth¿)is one of the typical examples. In 1986, H. Kesten showedtheanomalous behavior of a random walk on a percolation cluster at critical probability. Partly motivated by this work, analysis and diffusion processes on fractals have been developed since the late eighties. As a result, various new methods have been produced to estimate heat kernels on disordered media. These developments are summarized in the notes.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 160 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Organisations face many challenges, which induce them to perform better, and thus to establish mature (or excellent) business processes. As they now face globalisation, higher competitiveness, demanding customers, growing IT possibilities, compliancy rules etc., business process maturity models (BPMMs) have been introduced to help organisations gradually assess and improve their business processes (e.g. CMMI or OMG-BPMM). In fact, there are now so many BPMMs to choose from that organisations risk selecting one that does not fit their needs or one of substandard quality. This book presents a study that distinguishes process management from process orientation so as to arrive at a common understanding. It also includes a classification study to identify the capability areas and maturity types of 69 existing BPMMs, in order to strengthen the basis of available BPMMs. Lastly it presents a selection study to identify criteria for choosing one BPMM from the broad selection, which produced a free online selection tool, BPMM Smart-Selector.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 104 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Capitalism produced entrepreneurs and property rights, thetwo basic pillars of innovation and growth.As the speed oftechnologyis steadily increasing only radical innovation can be the name of the game. This book discusses technology and innovation trends by looking into historical examples and telling the latest business stories. It opens the discourse about pirates, pioneers, innovators and imitators; proposes the framework of dominant, science-driven and high-tech industry for innovation management andgives insights into intellectual property rights, industrial designs and technical risk management. Finally, it offers 8 important innovation principles for technology driven enterprises that have turned out to have a big effect on the outcome ¿ and in the end on growth.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 264 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This work examines in depth the relationship between foreign direct investment and the environment. Over the last few decades, increasing levels of environmental degradation have been recorded and have been claimed to be particularly attributable to globalization and the widespread increase of economic activities, in particular foreign direct investments (FDIs). However, the environmental implications of FDIs are not easily identified and contradictory views and arguments have been presented. This work contributes to the debate by closely analyzing the specific literature produced over the last three decades, and by presenting and discussing recent trends and prospects with regard to the FDI phenomenon.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 72 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book presents a novel approach to database concepts, describing a categorical logic for database schema mapping based on views, within a framework for database integration/exchange and peer-to-peer. Database mappings, database programming languages, and denotational and operational semantics are discussed in depth. An analysis method is also developed that combines techniques from second order logic, data modeling, co-algebras and functorial categorial semantics. Features: provides an introduction to logics, co-algebras, databases, schema mappings and category theory; describes the core concepts of big data integration theory, with examples; examines the properties of the DB category; defines the categorial RDB machine; presents full operational semantics for database mappings; discusses matching and merging operators for databases, universal algebra considerations and algebraic lattices of the databases; explores the relationship of the database weak monoidal topos w.r.t. intuitionistic logic.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 536 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book discusses the evaporation mechanism in the wick of copper heat pipes. The investigations are based on recent visualization experiments for operating horizontal flat-plate heat pipes.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 52 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -These lecture notes provide an introduction to the applications of Brownian motion to analysis and more generally, connections between Brownian motion and analysis. Brownian motion is a well-suited model for a wide range of real random phenomena, from chaotic oscillations of microscopic objects, such as flower pollen in water, to stock market fluctuations. It is also a purely abstract mathematical tool which can be used to prove theorems in 'deterministic' fields of mathematics.The notes include a brief review of Brownian motion and a section on probabilistic proofs of classical theorems in analysis. The bulk of the notes are devoted to recent (post-1990) applications of stochastic analysis to Neumann eigenfunctions, Neumann heat kernel and the heat equation in time-dependent domains.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 152 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 452 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Information Theoretic Security, ICITS 2013, held in Singapore in November 2013. The 14 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 49 submissions. Topics of interest are: unconditional security, quantum cryptography, authentication codes, wiretap channels, randomness extraction, codes and cryptography, lattices and cryptography, secret sharing, multiparty Computation, bounded storage model, oblivious transfer, nonlocality and nonsignaling, quantum information theory, network coding security, physical models and assumptions, physical layer security.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 272 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Passive and Active Measurement, PAM 2014, held in Los Angeles, CA, USA, in 2014. The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 76 submissions. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: internet wireless and mobility; measurement design, experience and analysis; performance measurement; protocol and application behavior; characterization of network behavior; and network security and privacy. In addition7 poster papers have been included.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 296 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the revised selected papers of the 8th International Workshop on Algorithms and Computation, WALCOM 2014, held in Chennai, India, in February 2014. The 29 full papers presented together with 3 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 62 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on computational geometry, algorithms and approximations, distributed computing and networks, graph algorithms, complexity and bounds, and graph embeddings and drawings.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 376 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Pairing-Based Cryptography, Pairing 2013, held in Beijing, China, in November 2013.The 14 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 59 submissions. As in previous years, the focus of Pairing 2013 is on all aspects of pairing-based cryptography, including: cryptographic primitives and protocols, mathematical foundations, software and hardware implementation, as well as applied security.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 264 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the 5th TPC Technology Conference, TPCTC 2013, held in Trento, Italy, in August 2013. It contains 7 selected peer-reviewed papers, a report from the TPC Public Relations Committee and one invited paper. The papers present novel ideas and methodologies in performance evaluation, measurement and characterization.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 160 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems, ARCS 2014, held in Lübeck, Germany, in February 2014. The 20 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 44 submissions. They are organized in topical sections named: parallelization: applications and methods; self-organization and trust; system design; system design and sensor systems; and virtualization: I/O, memory, cloud; dependability: safety, security, and reliability aspects.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 264 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Cryptographer's Track at the RSA Conference 2014, CT-RSA 2014, held in San Francisco, CA, USA, in February 2014. The 25 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 66 submissions. They are organized in topical sections on non-integral asymmetric functions, public-key encryption, hardware implementations, side-channel attacks, symmetric encryption and cryptanalysis, digital signatures, protocols, hash function cryptanalysis, and applications of cryptographic primitives.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 516 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This volume represents an up-to-date overview on the major areas of gynecological endocrinology, providing the reader with a complete explanation of female endocrine regulation and metabolism and relevant disorders and treatment. It is published within the International Society of Gynecological Endocrinology (ISGE) Series and is based on the 2013 International School of Gynecological and Reproductive Endocrinology Summer Course. The book covers a very wide range of topics ¿ from primary amenorrhea to menopause, from the impact of ovarian surgeryon fertility to fertility cryopreservation, from metabolic syndrome and polycystic ovary to premature ovarian failure and from the clinical impact of selective progesterone receptor modulators to the use of progesterone in prevention of premature labor. It will be an important tool for obstetricians and gynecologists, endocrinologists and experts in women¿s health as well as interested GPs.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 276 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 44th International Simulation and Gaming Association Conference, ISAGA 2013, and the IFIP WG 5.7 Workshop on Experimental Interactive Learning in Industrial Management, held in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 2013 The 30 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on frontiers in gaming simulation for education; frontiers in gaming simulation for design and experimentation; frontiers in gaming simulation for transportation and logistics; and professionalism and business in gaming simulation.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 280 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -The modern financial system was developed to support the rapid economic growth that took off about 200 years ago with the phenomenal amounts of cheap energy made available through the exploitation of fossil fuels. As a result, its viability is completely dependent upon the continuation of that growth. Unfortunately, the more recent fossil fuel discoveries, especially for oil, have tended to have lower production levels than earlier ones. In addition, greater amounts of energy are required to extract the fossil fuels leading to less net energy available for society. The Energy Return On Investment (EROI) for oil has fallen from 30:1 in the 1970's to 10:1 today. Thus, newer energy finds produce lower extraction rates and more of the energy provided is offset by the energy used in the extraction processes. The result has been economic stagnation or even contraction, with growth in China and India etc. only possible due to the extensive use of local coal reserves, and recession-induced drops in OECD country energy use. Renewable sources of energy will not be able to expand fast enough to replace the 87% of energy supplies provided by fossil fuels, and apart from hydro and wind, tend to have very low EROI rates. They are also critically dependent upon the cheap energy infrastructure provided by fossil fuels. The phenomenal amounts of path-dependent energy infrastructure will also greatly inhibit any move away from fossil fuels.Without continued economic growth there will not be the extra output to fund loan interest payments, nor the revenue and profit growth to support share price/earnings multiples. The financial system acts as a time machine, creating asset prices based upon perceptions of the future. As an increasing percentage of investors come to accept the future reality of at best, financial asset prices will fall to reflect a realistic future. The resulting crash will remove the underpinnings of the banking, brokerage, mutual fund, pension fund, and insurance industries. The comfortable futures of many will be shown to have been based upon a mirage of future growth that will not take place. With the financial system acting as the critical coordination system of the global economy, its crash will also intensify economic problems. Written by a retired financial industry executive with over 25 years of experience, this book describes how the crisis will affect different regions and industries to help identify the career and investment choices which may provide a relative safe harbour.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 88 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Success in solution business starts by accepting that solution business is a separate business model, not simply another product category or an extension of the existing product business. This book identifies the business model areas that firms need to focus on when transforming into solution business. It further organizes these areas into three sets of capabilities and practices: commercialization, industrialization and solution platforms. This is the first book to take a comprehensive view of success in solution business and its relevance therefore extends to all functions of firms wanting to become solution providers as well as to many managerial levels. The book will also help you self-assess how ready your organization is for success in solution business.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 156 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book describes the trends in digital innovation that are of most importance for businesses and explores the key challenges. The book is in three parts, the first of which focuses on developments in digital systems. Here, the ever-growing relevance of big data, cloud computing, and mobile services for business is discussed, and detailed consideration is given to the importance of social listening for understanding user behavior and needs and the implications of IT consumerization. In the second part, trends in digital management are examined, with chapters devoted to work practice, digital business identity as well as branding and governance. The final part of the book presents and reviews case studies of digital innovation at the global level that provide a benchmark of best practices, with inclusion of instructive fact sheets.While the book offers academic coverage of the digital transformation of business organizations and the associated challenges, it also describes concrete, real-world issues in clear, easy-to-understand language and will serve as a toolbox for managers that can be readily consulted. The text is supported by informative illustrations and tables, and practitioners will also benefit from the reported case studies and highlighted insights and recommendations.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 240 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Matrices can be studied in different ways. They are a linear algebraic structure and have a topological/analytical aspect (for example, the normed space of matrices) and they also carry an order structure that is induced by positive semidefinite matrices. The interplay of these closely related structures is an essential feature of matrix analysis.This book explains these aspects of matrix analysis from a functional analysis point of view. After an introduction to matrices and functional analysis, it covers more advanced topics such as matrix monotone functions, matrix means, majorization and entropies. Several applications to quantum information are also included.Introduction to Matrix Analysis and Applications is appropriate for an advanced graduate course on matrix analysis, particularly aimed at studying quantum information. It can also be used as a reference for researchers in quantum information, statistics, engineering and economics.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 340 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This monograph presents, for the first time, a unified and comprehensive introduction to some of the basic transport properties of porous media, such as electrical and hydraulic conductivity, air permeability and diffusion. The approach is based on critical path analysis and the scaling of transport properties, which are individually described as functions of saturation. At the same time, the book supplies a tutorial on percolation theory for hydrologists, providing them with the tools for solving actual problems. In turn, a separate chapter serves to introduce physicists to some of the language and complications of groundwater hydrology necessary for successful modeling. The end-of-chapter problems often indicate open questions, which young researchers entering the field can readily start working on. This significantly revised and expanded third edition includes in particular two new chapters: one on advanced fractal-based models, and one devoted to the discussion of various open issues such as the role of diffusion vs. advection, preferential flow vs. critical path, universal vs. non-universal exponents for conduction, and last but not least, the overall influence of the experimental apparatus in data collection and theory validation. 'The book is suitable for advanced graduate courses, with selected problems and questions appearing at the end of each chapter. [.] I think the book is an important work that will guide soil scientists, hydrologists, and physicists to gain a better qualitative and quantitative understanding of multitransport properties of soils.' (Marcel G. Schaap, Soil Science Society of America Journal, May-June, 2006)Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 472 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -The fourth edition of this successful textbook presents a comprehensive introduction to statistical and numerical methods for the evaluation of empirical and experimental data. Equal weight is given to statistical theory and practical problems. The concise mathematical treatment of the subject matter is illustrated by many examples and for the present edition a library of Java programs has been developed. It comprises methods of numerical data analysis and graphical representation as well as many example programs and solutions to programming problems.The book is conceived both as an introduction and as a work of reference. In particular it addresses itself to students, scientists and practitioners in science and engineering as a help in the analysis of their data in laboratory courses, in working for bachelor or master degrees, in thesis work, and in research and professional work.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 544 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Against the backdrop of Chinäs increasingly influential role in the international financial architecture, this book seeks to characterize and evaluate Chinäs financial power potential. It does so by analyzing the relationship between domestic financial repression and international financial power in the context of the political economy of the developmental state. On the basis of a novel theoretical framework for the analysis of the financial power potential of developmental states, the book provides an in-depth analysis of Chinäs approach to currency internationalization, its creditor status and its policies towards the Bretton Woods institutions while contrasting the country¿s present role in global finance with the position of the Japanese developmental state in the 1980s and 1990s.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 176 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Increasing concerns regarding the world¿s natural resources and sustainability continue to be a major issue for global development. As a result several political initiatives and strategies for green or resource-efficient growth both on national and international levels have been proposed. A core element of these initiatives is the promotion of an increase of resource or material productivity. This dissertation examines material productivity developments in the OECD and BRICS countries between 1980 and 2008. By applying the concept of convergence stemming from economic growth theory to material productivity the analysis provides insights into both aspects: material productivity developments in general as well potentials for accelerated improvements in material productivity which consequently may allow a reduction of material use globally. The results of the convergence analysis underline the importance of policy-making with regard to technology and innovation policy enabling the production of resource-efficient products and services as well as technology transfer and diffusion.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 232 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -The research work on the topic of ¿¿Tomography of the Earth¿s Crust: From Geophysical Sounding to Real-Time Monitoring¿¿ has focused on the development of cross-scale multiparameter methods and their technological application together with the development of innovative field techniques. Seismic wave field inversion theory, diffusion and potential methods were developed and optimized with respect to cost and benefit aspects.This volume summarizes the scientific results of nine interdisciplinary joint projects funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the framework of the Research and Development Program GEOTECHNOLOGIEN.Highlights and innovations presented cover many length scales and involve targets ranging from applications in the laboratory, to ground water surveys of heterogeneous aquifer, geotechnical applications like tunnel excavation, coal mine and CO2 monitoring and the imaging and monitoring of tectonic and societally relevant objects as active faults and volcanoes.To study these objects, the authors use the full spectrum of geophysical methods (ultrasonics, seismic and seismology, electromagnetics, gravity, and airborne) in combination with new methods like seismic interferometry, diffuse wave field theory and full-wave-form inversion in 3D and partially also in 4D.Geophysical Sounding to Real-Time Monitoring¿¿ has focused on the development of cross-scale multiparameter methods and their technological application together with the development of innovative field techniques. Seismic wave field inversion theory, diffusion and potential methods were developed and optimized with respect to cost and benefit aspects.This volume summarizes the scientific results of nine interdisciplinary joint projects funded by the German FederalMinistry of Education and Research in the framework of the Research and Development Program GEOTECHNOLOGIEN.Highlights and innovations presented cover many length scales and involve targets ranging from applications in the laboratory, to ground water surveys of heterogeneous aquifer, geotechnical applications like tunnel excavation, coal mine and CO2 monitoring and the imaging and monitoring of tectonic and societally relevant objects as active faults and volcanoes.To study these objects, the authors use the full spectrum of geophysical methods (ultrasonics, seismic and seismology, electromagnetics, gravity, and airborne) in combination with new methods like seismic interferometry, diffuse wave field theory and full-wave-form inversion in 3D and partially also in 4D.2 monitoring and the imaging and monitoring of tectonic and societally relevant objects as active faults and volcanoes.To study these objects, the authors use the full spectrum of geophysical methods (ultrasonics, seismic and seismology, electromagnetics, gravity, and airborne) in combination with new methods like seismic interferometry, diffuse wave field theory and full-wave-form inversion in 3D and partially also in 4D.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 188 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This monograph is dedicated to the derivation and analysis of fluid models occurring in plasma physics. It focuses on models involving quasi-neutrality approximation, problems related to laser propagation in a plasma, and coupling plasma waves and electromagnetic waves. Applied mathematicians will find a stimulating introduction to the world of plasma physics and a few open problems that are mathematically rich. Physicists who may be overwhelmed by the abundance of models and uncertain of their underlying assumptions will find basic mathematical properties of the related systems of partial differential equations. A planned second volume will be devoted to kinetic models.First and foremost, this book mathematically derives certain common fluid models from more general models. Although some of these derivations may be well known to physicists, it is important to highlight the assumptions underlying the derivations and to realize that some seemingly simple approximations turn out to be more complicated than they look. Such approximations are justified using asymptotic analysis wherever possible. Furthermore, efficient simulations of multi-dimensional models require precise statements of the related systems of partial differential equations along with appropriate boundary conditions. Some mathematical properties of these systems are presented which offer hints to those using numerical methods, although numerics is not the primary focus of the book.Springer Basel AG in Springer Science + Business Media, Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin 252 pp. Englisch.